Hey everyone, I'm Robin.

About a month ago, I finally sat down and listened to the entirety of Radiohead's alternative rock album released in 1997, OK Computer. I ended up enjoying the album personally, with the songs Paranoid Android and Fitter Happier standing out as some of my favorites, for different reasons each. What I wasn't really expecting was the opening song to the album, Airbag, and the emotions I feel when I listen to it. For those of you who don't know, Airbag is about the emotions lead singer of Radiohead Tom Yorke had after being in a car accident with his girlfriend a decade prior to the release of OK Computer. This post isn't going to really delve into that as I'm not too familiar with Radiohead beyond this album, but thankfully there an old video from YouTuber Jschlatt that goes into the history of this song and examines what some of the lyrics mean in relation to Yorke's experience that you can watch here when you have the time. Today though, I want to go over my relationship with this one song.

(The cover art for Radiohead's OK Computer.)

Before I can talk about the song itself, I need to explain why the song hits me so hard. On January 26th, 2020, I got off work and called an Uber driver, like I usually did. I lived in the opposite direction of the rest of my coworkers, so I couldn't really ask them for a ride home and I didn't know how to drive. Hell, I still don't, but that's neither here not there. So I get in the Uber driver's car, sitting myself behind the driver seat, and I talk about work and stuff because I felt chatty that night. We almost get to the home I was staying in, stopping at the second to last red light, which was right next to the other light. During the whole time I've been talking, the driver has been chiming with a lot of "yeah" and "uh-huh" response. I noticed then that he was glancing back at me a lot. So he made the turn and I remember my body jerking forward and hearing a loud sound crash.

I was overcome with shock, I hadn't realized what happened. "Oh god" I remember yelling. "What- what the fuck just-" before I could finish, the airbag to the my left deployed, and for a brief period I think I lost consciousness. I saw my life flash before my eyes. Visiting L.A. for the first time and meeting two of my online friends in person. My senior year of highschool getting dinner at Buzz Inn Steakhouse with some friends, then walking to the local frozen yogurt place for desert. My mom crying at my highschool graduation. My dad coming back from deployment. Hanging out with friends from all over my school life, most of which probably forgot I exist by now. Last but not least, I saw me and my younger brothers drinking juice boxes and watching cartoons together. Then I saw darkness, and thought to myself "I'm right, there is no afterlife. I'm dead."

"Sir, come on. I need you to get out of there." That's what a cop said to me as he helped pull me out of the car. In that moment, I was awake. Everything had hit me. I was high. Not like, I was on drugs, more like I overcome with pure adrenaline. I was shaking, but I wasn't cold. I felt like I could punch someone and knock them out cold with one hit. I felt alive, because I was alive. I sat on the curb, while the policeman searched for my hat and glasses and helped get my groceries put of the wreckage. A milk jug had exploded and some pasta bags broke open, but everything else was surprisingly intact. As I began to calm down, a thought hit my head. "Shit, I have to tell my mom what just happened." At this point it was around 10:00 PM and I didn't want to call her. As I'm sure you've figured out right now, I was kind of all over the place mentally and definitely not thinking straight. So I sent my mom a text saying the Uber driver had crashed the car but I was okay, and for some reason thought the logical course of action was to take a selfie and attach that to the message. I didn't realize there was blood in the corner of my mouth from biting down on my cheek, but thankfully the shadows hid it pretty well. Here's a slightly edited version of that picture:

And for good measure, I took a picture of the car I was in only to get an album cover. Here's that picture:

So obviously my family starts messaging me to make sure I'm okay, and I'm honestly still a little dazed just from the shock of everything, so I'm telling my mom, my dad, my grandma my aunt, maybe my grandpa as well that I'm okay and a cop drives me home after a paramedic says it seems like I'm fine and don't need an ambulance. So I go home, put away my groceries, throw up in my toilet, then go to bed. As I'm falling asleep, my body starts hurting, and I just feel horrible. When I wake up the next day, my left arm is stiff and really feel it. My aunt takes me to the walk-in, and they send me to the E.R. Turns out, I wasn't fine- my clavicle had cracked and I needed to wear a sling.

So that put me out of work for a few weeks. I couldn't really do anything but watch Netflix and YouTube and make simple meals that only required one hand to make. I felt horrible, like it was my fault or something. I was worried that, being left-handed, I'd have to relearn how to write and would never be able to draw again. That's probably why I spent so much time drawing for a while after I got the sling off, but that's neither here nor there. I could go in depth about everything that came after, recovery and all that, but to make a long story short, I'm okay now and I've been compensated for my troubles. I'm never using an Uber ever again though and I feel uncomfortable sitting behind the driver when I'm in a vehicle. For the most part, I've pushed the event out of my head and had almost forgotten it. That is, until the opening guitar riff of Airbag.

Airbag is a tough song for me to listen to. It's not bad at all, I think it's a good song. It's just that the song itself gives me this really heavy and intense feeling. The first time I listened to the song, I felt uneasy when I realized what it was about. The second time I listened to it, I really focused on it- the music, the words, everything. I almost gave myself a panic attack doing that. Details I had forgotten came back, what was fuzzy became clear, I think you get the picture. What stuck out to me most though was the thing the song is named after- the airbag. In the song, close to the end, Tom sings this:

"I am born again

In a fast German car

I'm amazed that I survived

An airbag saved my life"

"An airbag saved my life." Is that what happened? It doesn't feel like that's what happened in my case. I felt the crash, there was a pause, then the airbag hit the side of my head. The pressure of the airbag slamming against the side of my head and my neck... it didn't feel like a savior, it felt like an insult to an injury I didn't realize I had. That airbag slamming against me is a moment in time perfectly captured in my head. I don't know if that's something I'll ever really be able to forget. When I was pulled out, I was amazed that I had survived. I was blown away by the fact that I was not dead, baffled even. For a while I wondered if this reality I'm experiencing right now was just some comatose dream and i was in a hospital bed, but now I realize that was just pessimistic thinking. Maybe some kind of guilt, or something.

Last night, I listened to Airbag on repeat. I wanted to sketch out something with as much detail as I could from the event. Was it a stupid idea? Probably. No, it definitely was. But I had my mind dead set on it, and there was no changing that. So, after an hour of hastily scribbling, I got this:

The moment the airbag hit me, from what I can remember. My glasses and hat flying off, the iron grip I had on my phone, the blood from my mouth after I had bit down on my cheek when the car impacted, and the dazed shock that caused me to temporarily pass out and watch my life flash before my eyes. A good friend of mine helped me calm myself, and thankfully it didn't take too long as I was pretty alright for the most part. After that though, I'll admit- I kind of do feel reborn, like I've come to understand something I hadn't figured out fro almost two years. The airbag didn't save my life. Those who care about me- my friends, my family, they saved my life.

Thanks for reading. Stay safe out there everyone. I'll see you all later.

-Robin.